Teach Sharing (and all things) PROACTIVELY!
I'm super excited because today I'm going to talk to you about one of my very very favorite strategies. Before I get to the strategy, I'm going to give you some backstory and help you really understand why the strategy is so important and why what we might be already doing is ineffective.
So let's rewind back to when Charlie my son who is 3 and 1/2 was 2 years old. When he was two-years-old he had a really really hard time sharing especially with a specific friend and both of these boys every single time they were together they would fight.
Constantly, they would cry if they cannot return they would cry if somebody has a toy that they want even if they didn't want it. They would not share any of their toys the problem here wasn't just that they weren't sharing but when they were in a conflict, so when one child took another toy from them or there was any sort of conflict with in the sharing the realm of sharing possibilities.
They would cry they would scream they would freak out sometimes they would hit and push they were not figuring out how to deal with conflict with each other at all. And there were realizing that when they scream and cry that one of us would come step in and help because it would escalate so quickly and at this point, they're not learning any skills at all.
It was so hard to get them to play nicely with each other. Sharing is developmentally appropriate behavior that every kid needs to learn at some point and usually kids who have like a preference of toy or they just really like their space. They're going to have a hard time with sharing we're going to have a hard time when they're playing with something. That's awesome. And somebody else wants to play with it.
It was hard for us to be around each other because every single time we're constantly navigating these super-strong reactions. So I want to tell you a little bit about what's happening in the brain behind the sharing instances before I get into the strategy.
So when two kids are playing with something all that they can see right there is that “this is mine” — I want to play with it. At this developmental stage, the world revolves around them. So when they can't have the toy that they want and they are going to get upset and that's totally normal. It's also normal for their brains to go to a place that's called the fight or flight mode.
Amygdala Hijack
The amygdala is an almond-shaped piece of the brain and it's responsible for the fight-or-flight reaction. So when the amygdala is signaled, they go into this fight or flight response mode. I’m sure you’ve seen it before. One kid tries to take it from another one and then pretty soon that kids fighting the other kid. Or that kid’s throwing the toy, running away and hiding — there so many scenarios where kids are using this flight or fight tactic.
Children don’t choose to turn into the Hulk all of a sudden — their brain has turned off all reasoning. That flight/flight response tells them they are in danger mode and need to attack.
It is important that we help them learn these skills, whether we want them to take turns or whether we want them to share on a timer or whether we want them to trade or whether we want them to like play together.
I reflected — this is happening every single time and it's just not enjoyable. It's not a joy to go to the pool is not enjoyable to go to the Jump Zone. It's not enjoyable to play games at each other's houses because we constantly are on their case separating them. If we're playing a game then one of the dads, when it's not their turn, is breaking up this fight and one of the moms is setting the timer for this problem. It just seriously was so hard.
I can't expect him to know how to share just because I want him to be able to share. It's like if you're sitting at home and your husband's like, okay, I'm going to send a friend over to play with you today. So like you send over my friend and then my friend just comes over and starts going through my drawers and trying on my clothes that would make me feel really uncomfortable. And that's what it feels like to these kids. And so for them to just out of nowhere their mothers are like, “hey another kid’s going to come over and take everything you care about and play with it.”
That's kind of a hard concept to take in and understand… the same thing happens with siblings.
I decided that it was something that I couldn't wait to teach when it happened. It wasn't something that they get in the sharing argument and then I sit down and say okay. Let's share like this. It just wasn't working. And so I implemented one of my very very favorite strategies on the concept of sharing and the strategy is called the Green Arrow moment.
So the Green Arrow moment is seriously life-changing.
GREEN ARROW MOMENT
GREEN ARROW: So your child's playing with you in the morning, things are going well, you're talking and playing with blocks, you're building, it's awesome. Neutral & engaged
YELLOW ARROW: So then they like start to get frustrated because he's building this tower and his sister keeps running over. And so then it starts to get tense.
RED ARROW MOMENT: Now the sister comes over, knocks over the tower full-on and your son loses it, loses his mind, starts throwing things tantrum full on.
He's right there in that fight or flight mode. So when we go try to reason with him, his emotions are taking over and he cannot reason so we don't go over and say, “Hey bud, you need to share. We'll figure this out. Let's just play nice.”
You're saying the right things. Absolutely you're saying all the nice things the things that you want him to develop the things that he's working on it learning you're saying everything, right?
But you're saying it at the wrong time.
It's not about what you're doing. It's about when you're doing it. So go back to that bell curve.
In the Green Arrow moments, we teach. In the yellow arrow moment, we prompt. In the red arrow moment, we prompt.
Back to the Example
I'm going to show you what this looks like with the situation with Charlie and his best friend. So Charlie and his best friend were fighting all the time.
I took an inventory. What do we need to work on in the GREEN ARROW MOMENTS, before his friend will come over again? SHARING.
I sat down with him on the floor. I got some popular toys out that Charlie liked. Then I took one and he took one, and we played with it for a few minutes and I said, “Okay, let's trade” and so then we switched toys and then we played with them for a few minutes.
He starts to get really engaged with it and then I’d say okay time to trade. He was a little resistant at first.
So we practice trading for about 20 minutes and then when his friend came over and they started to play and he started to get into that yellow arrow moment where things started to get tense. I would remind hey, remember you can trade and they would figure out a way to trade.
It was a little rocky at first because he needed that support. The proactive practice doesn't automatically switch something in their brain. But because we practice it so much in positive neutral settings… when the Yellow arrow moment started creeping up, I could prompt him and remind him and he was ready to do it. It was so amazing.
The next sharing skill that we worked on when sharing was taking turns. So, I use something called is that Mouse timer on my phone — it’s just a free app and it's this mouse and he eats all these apples and when he eats all the apples, then he gets to the cheese. So if there's one minute on the timer, there's five apples if there's two minutes on the timer, there's 10 apples and so on. So if we wanted to take then we would turn on the mouse timer and then when it was Charlie's turn, he would say my turn and then the other one would come set the new timer.
So the reason why this was so successful is that Charlie and I practiced this at home before anything happened with the other child coming over the other child's mom was using the timer system at home too.
Learning the skill of taking turns is something they don't understand because they haven’t developed a concept of time. This mouse timer was a game-changer for us. And so we practice it will use this thing to help us. It was a problem for us and heated moments when things were starting to get tense and it was so successful.
NOW
So last Sunday, we had them over for hot dogs and it was awesome and I'm still fine and the kids are playing amazingly and they're talking and having so much fun because his friend is 4 and Charlie is 3 and they have conversations now they play together super well, they scare toys. They share toys in each other's home. So like his friend shares his toys Charlie shares his toys and they share with melee. It's like incredible, but we were sitting there reflecting and the other child. He was riding Charlie's bike and he was riding around and he is having so much fun. And we don't want to stop him from telling me he was having so much fun and Charlie goes over and says I want to turn on my bike.
And I was like, oh no let’s just let him —- and this child was like, “okay Charlie you can have a turn.” He got right up and let Charlie have his bike. It was the most incredible like empowering moment for all of us were sitting there like, oh my goodness. Can you believe how far they come how far they have come we used to have to seriously use the mouse timer. We used to have to practice for 20 minutes before each time. Now, they both have the skills to be able to interact and share and get along and it is so much pressure off of the parents.
You probably know how hard it is to get together with other parents and family members when the kids just absolutely do not get along and it's not that you're doing anything wrong on either side. It's just their temperaments their ages things aren't working out and is more exhausting to get together for that playdate that you want so bad with the other mom.
It's just so much more exhausting than it would be to just not even do it not even try and so my encouragement for you to get to this point with your kids is USE THE GREEN ARROW MOMENT!
Don't teach in the red arrow moment, ever. Their brain is not able to teach and I'll talk about this more of other behavior is because sharing is not the only thing you can use the strategy with. I want to address again a couple of reasons why we don't teach in the red arrow moment.
First, it can be really reinforcing to the negative behavior. If they are hitting someone and you run to the rescue every time or if they're not sharing and you run to the rescue every time is teaching them that you are going to be there to solve their problems every single time. If you step in overtime they cry, they’re not learning the conflict management skills.
The second thing is they're going to continue that negative behavior because they're getting attention for it. Even if it's negative attention. They're getting a response from their parent and sometimes that's what they're seeking.
The hesitation with this Strategy
A hesitation, I see with this kind of strategy it’s that it’s more hands-on and teaching proactively is that some people think it's like micromanaging their kids or like doing too much for them to help them figure out life.
And that is absolutely a myth! Sometimes they're going to figure it out on their own.
But the alternative to not teaching proactively would be that your micromanaging the situation every single time your kids need to share and so you're sitting there and you're saying do this do this do this and you're working them through that.
If you teach proactively, you spend that 5-10 minutes before a challenge that usually happens comes up. Then you have helped them LEARN the skills. You just prompt them sometimes or even better, they master it and do it all by themselves. At this point, you don't need to get involved at all. There's no micromanaging involved. Especially if both parties are teaching proactively.
Charlie is at the point where he’s doing a lot of these sharing strategies all on his own. Charlie will see that Maelie has his car his really cool car that he left and she's playing with it and she's loving it and he came up to me and he said
hey, I need to go in the house and get something for Maelie. And I was like, what?? why the heck does he need to go get something for Maelie?
He went inside you found her baby in her room. He brings it out. He gives it to her and says
Here sis, let's trade
And then he trades with her my mind was BLOWN.
He did a trade all by himself. He wanted from the toy all by himself. He solving these problems all by himself and it's not because I'm micromanaging the situation. It's because I'm teaching and green arrow moments proactive skills.
Things don't happen overnight. But over time when we teach proactively — it's not just helping them learn that skill for the short-term, but it's making it so we don't have to be so involved in the long-term. We're coaching them. We're helping them learn these skills and then we're setting them off in in Green Arrow moments to practice with us, and ultimately sending them free to be emotionally healthy children in this world.
It’s absolutely incredible in my life. It feels like a miracle and so I hope that you use this green arrow moment strategy in your life.
FAQ: What do we do in the red arrow moment?
We don't just ignore the behavior when it happens. The red arrow moment is NOT the time to teach. The red arrow moment is not the time to teach, but you still need to RESPOND to the behavior.
You can't just ignore the junk and focus on the good in this case.
You really really really need to stop the behavior, especially if it's dangerous.
So if they are like escalating to the point where they're not sharing and they're throwing toys then maybe it's time to put that certain toy away. Maybe it's time to play with two different things. Maybe it's time to leave.
There are so many different options when that red arrow moments happen, but ignoring them is not what I'm telling you to do.
So what do we need to do? The biggest thing? I want you to take away from this is in the red arrow moment. You stop the behavior as safely as possible without giving a lot of attention to it. And then you take an inventory you let them go back on that bell curve. You let them come back down you get to that green or a moment and then you can rent a great into the play, or maybe it's too far gone. If you already missed the opportunity and left the park..then you practice practice practice before you get back into that situation again, okay.
Challenge time!
Find those green arrow moments.
Think of a skill that your child needs to learn.
Maybe it's sharing.Practice those in Green Arrow moments and let me know how it goes.
